Friday! It was finally here. I always look forward to getting back home. I was even more excited to be back at my 2nd home at Snapback LBC.

It wouldn't be a typical day in my life if a few things didn't go well.

It began as any other day would, though. I got the kids ready and sent off to school. I do these trips home often. You'd think that my luggage packing skills would be phenomenal by now. My attire and toiletries were all ready to go. So was I. Or, so I thought.

I didn't have to rush to the airport because I had booked a later flight that usual. I'm driving down the 880. My DJ backpack/carry on was riding shotgun. I was almost near the Dumbarton Bridge when I think 'oh, yeah, i should do a quick OCD check of the contents of my bag. Laptop-check. Hard drive-check. Headphones. ...... . . . . ... . I laughed as I sipped my coffee. It wouldn't be typical if I didn't forget something rather critical. Damn. I took to text because I thought this particular person would get a kick out of this..

I was kidding about the laptop.

I made it through security swiftly. I had a little bit of time prior to boarding so I was able to go through music. To bring light to the headphone thing, I also thought it would be "fun" to then text Remark to say I forgot my hard drive. He has a lot going on during the day of for SnapBack that had I been hard driveless, it might have stressed him out a bit. Me, being his bff, can get away with being a punk. He almost fell for it. He also didn't think it was as funny as I thought it was.

It was time to board. First class is the only way to go. I already needed a drink.....and some tea, some gummy bears and cookies...and.....

Fast forward to the evening. A few weeks back I had "accidentally" had my system upgraded to El Capitan. Now, if you know, this update is rather problematic for Scratch Live. I worked the hack at home back then and thought, ok, this might affect me at home because in my home studio I run the Rane 57. Snapback runs the 62. I thought since my system was running smoothly at home, the 62 should read.

Hotel room selfie, of course

The Federal Bar. Downtown Long Beach

Dirty Chips. Gah damn.

My Best Friend and I headed into The Federal Underground early to sound check. We especially wanted to make sure my system would read on the 62. Negative. At this point a single tear was welling in my eye. We ran updates for Scratch DJ and all that first. In my heart, I knew I needed to run my "hack" that I ran at home. But, I wanted to try this first. Well we got the system to read. But the sound wasn't coming out. Not sure if Sound Guy had turned something off. Ultimately, I had to run the hack to get Scratch Live to run.

It seemed stable. Now, all I had to do was pray. Closed the laptop and went to eat upstairs at The Federal Bar. DJ Orion already opened up the club.

Fck.

The whole time, I was thinking "holy shit. I can't believe this." I was nervous that 1. it wasn't going to even work and 2. If if DID so happen to work, that it would crap on me mid-set. I tried really hard to not seem so freaking concerned. Play it cool. Everything will be fine. We are eating my favorite Dirty Chips and Short Rib Mac and Cheese. This will make everything in life good again. I got full fast. This was probably our fastest meal we have ever had. We were seated. Got our orders in. Ate. Paid. Split. There were all kinds of different side things going on that night. Was busy; eventful.

Back to The Federal Underground. The venue was already packed. I settled in up on stage. I already started seeing a lof of familiar faces. All my staples were there, minus my #Boothangina, who was home resting. I was really missing her because she is ALWAYS there with us. I sent her a text.

DJ Icy Ice was on before me. Remark gave me the signal to get queued up. Alright ya'll. Let's go!

All I can say is, THIS WAS THE FUNNEST NIGHT I've had in a long ass time! So much fun! Thank you Long Beach for showing this girl so much love. The Bay Area was in the house. Beautiful people were present. The night was a success! I even saw Remark dancing next to me, and I have never seen him get down like that. Or dance. Like, ever! Haha dope!

I have to say that one of the unique experiences here at SnapBack is getting to work and pair with some phenomenal emcees like Trek and Toquon Tha MC. I got to spin with both. This particular night was pretty fucking sick because I felt more in tune with my emcee and we killed it. No one rocks a party better than Toquon and Trek. To you, I tip my SnapBack hat.

One of my favorite parts of the night is when the fellas all gathered around me for a picture during my set. We usually do that at the end of the night!

After My set I gave away a bunch of my Everyday People tees out. I just shot them out in to the crowd and they loved it! Thank you to everyone who has supported me with that little project! My hearts cup runneth over!

Remark closed the night out mad strong. I had been on my feet all day and though this old maid was tired, I couldn't stop dancing and singing. Remark always brings it. Thank you! I burned all the calories we had consumed earlier that day.

Thank you to all my friends who came out to share this moment with me! Especially my staple; my kid brother Roger, Lloyd, Michael R. (Thanks for the pictures), and my boy Fritz (even though I am not Talib Kweli lol)! God damn. It felt good to see you ALL!

Check out this video footage of my intro...haha hell yeah!

I can't say that I would have had a better night if it weren't for the Snapback fam, especially DJ Orion, DJ remark, DJ Icy Ice and Toquon tha MC. Toquon is one hell of an emcee. He is excellent at what he does. He and I have a pretty amazing chemistry and read off each other fairly well. We work well together and I am very honored to rock with him and the fellas. Thank you guys so much for always making me feel like fam. That means a ton!!!

Alright, so I wasn't planning on sharing the live recording, but I feel the sharing this is important in that you can see what an amazing time we have here at this particular party. These nights are always special to me. Play this mix all the way through and you'll hear why.

One last thought. It's always nights like this that confirm I am in the right place in life, at the right time, doing good things with good people and enjoying the vibrations that move our souls and our bodies together. I love that I can play for you, and that I contributed to making your time with me worth it.

Hey Everyone!!! THIS FRIDAY, Feb 24th, I'm returning to Snapback LBC and absolutely cannot wait! If you're in the SoCal area, make your plans. There shall be NO rain. Come out, Catch some vibes and have a good time with us!

Growing up, my exposure to Janet Jackson was Charlene from Diff'rent Strokes. Then I backtracked in to discovering she played Penny on Good Times and Cleo on Fame (don't remember that show? tsk tsk).

My eyes widened and attention perked when I heard the lead single off the Control album, What Have You Done For Me Lately? "I know he used to nice stuff for you. But what has he done - for - you------late-ly." Yes, Paula. Yes! Sidebar: Paula is 2nd reason why I loved dance and had that ultimate dream of being a LAKER GIRL. I've settled. 49ers Gold Rush Girl was pretty damn amazing! Anyway...

Janet did the Number Ones tour in 2011. I had tickets to that and last minute chose to pass on it willfully. Since then, I've felt I needed to create a new and better experience IF she ever went on tour again. Just my luck, plans for Janet's Unbreakable World Tour surfaced for 2015. So...........

IDEA

I don't even recall exactly how the conversation went since it's been so long now. My Best Friend, DJ Remark and I spoke of music and the scene quite often. Janet's tour came up. I thought out loud and threw the idea at him. Let's do a Janet Tribute! He willfully agreed. =)

In Remark's words: "I said 'Hey I like your NE mix, I was gonna do a Janet one like that" and you said "no you're not, cuz I'm gonna make a Janet mix.'"

LOL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PRE-GAME

Remark and I live on opposite ends of California. Though, I had traveled back home to LA often, we would have to plan to put this mix together separately. How do we do this? How are we picking songs? All I remember was us discussing whether or not we add songs from 'Dream Street'.

THE DRAFT

This was my first time ever doing some kind of pre-planned mix with anyone. My daughter, Lyric has been fairly involved in things we do musically. I thought it would be dope to have her be a part of the drafting process.

I went through Janet's discography and manually wrote down all songs from albums we wanted to include in the draft. Dream Street was not included.

Live Draft via FaceTime

Draft

Remark's tracks

My tracks

Sealed

Helping me record

THE PROCESS

After our tracks were all picked, I thought about what I wanted to do with it. The draft included both fast and slow tracks. My initiative was just to go with all her party tracks. I wanted this piece to feel good, take you back in time, and be something you can rock wit for a bit.

Since the songs in the lottery mainly included tracks from albums, 'Doesn't Really Matter', a track off the Nutty Professor II Soundtrack was not originally considered. I added this to my set post draft. In fact, I had been in "Janet mode" for minute. I listened to her entire catalog. Her music was highly captivating. It was relatable. It was relevant.

We both had a ton of songs to work with. I wanted to keep my set within about 30-35 minutes so I definitely had to eliminate some tracks. I'm fairly happy with the final set list.

I remember I began recording the mix way before Mark even thought about touching it. Our plan was to release this prior to Janet's Unbreakable tour hit California in October which first hit San Francisco on Oct. 13th & 14th and the show I attended back home in Los Angeles at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood.

We planned recording in the midst of summer. In the Bay Area this time of year is a mixed bag of weather. My studio is set inside the house so it really doesn't matter. In LA, where DJ Remark is located, it is usually a toss-up of hot and hotter. His recording space is in the garage which means he ain't recording until it's cool enough - or maybe even when he damn well pleases. He's a busy dude with gigs and Snapback. How can I pressure him into hurrying up? *grin*

I did some pre-work by getting some edits made before recording the skeleton track. I knew where I wanted to go with this mix. It seemed so right inside the dome. When I ran through the songs in a session, it was already my first transition where I said, "Shit. This don't sound right." It was the blend from 'Nasty' to 'Doesn't Really Matter'. I thought my edit was pretty well constructed, but it just wasn't jiving. So, I had to hit the edit again. I chopped the fuck out of that song and basically recomposed it, remixed it. Boom.

My set was comprised of a lot of the root samples found in her music. I think that's what made the piece more interesting and gave it more texture. I mean, shit. I had NO idea what Remark was going to do with his set, and well, I super admire him and his skills as a DJ. He makes shit look so effortless. I had to make my shit fly.

One of my song requests prior to draft was 'Escapade'. I wanted to freak the bells and chime sounds from the intro of that song. This edit is probably my most proudest moment in this set. I haven't had much experience in flipping samples in a song to make a new sound. That shit was mad fun. My hope with this was that very first time you hear that on the 1, you're like, 'ok, this is Escapade'....but wait, that's not how it originally goes. Some kind of "oh shit" factor. Well, I hope that's what it did to ya when you first heard it. Make sure you turn it up when you hear 'Feedback' to 'Escapade'.

Me: WYDRemark: Recording the Janet mix

I remember texting him this and though I played it cool, I was like screaming inside with joy. This is finally coming together! YAY! I remember waiting impatiently to hear it. *looking at watch*

He sent me his version when he was done. My. God. He was GENIUS in placing the Friday snippets in there.

Man, that was good. SO, SO GOOD.

I loved his use of 'Ventura Highway' by America and in to 'Someone to Call My Lover'. I didn't even think of using that. OOOH, and when he dropped that 'Let's Wait Awhile' remix? Serious head nodding there.

Listening to his set and where he was going with it was and still is completely enjoyable. He took us on that journey and showed his personality in this mix and structure depth through use of samples, sound bites, and "show me your tricks" mixing (inside joke). I don't think I will ever get tired of listening to any of the mixes he puts together.

CREATING THE INTRO

Janet's albums go heavy on talking intros and preludes. I wanted to keep in-step with that. She uses a ton of sexual innuendos and breathy voices. Janet is all about sex. I, on the other hand could never be as sexy as she is. But I tried.

The phrase, "this is gonna be so sick" came from the posts leading up to my Boothang, Melody's birthday that Remark and I were gonna be DJing. I used that because, Yes, it was and still is sick. =) *toot, toot*

I did two takes on the intro. The first one was too much. I was told it was "too sexy" (shrug). I'm much happier with the one we released with. Simple, to the point. Needle on the record scratch right in to "GIMME A BEAT". BAM! That's exactly how I had to start my set.

LET'S GO.

WHAT ARE WE NAMING IT?

Only a few people knew Remark and I were doing this collab. He and I talked about what it should be. The title of the mix came from neither of us. Our girl Med, whom is one of my closest girlfriends and Boothang threw a few possibilities into the mix title universe. I mean, when you think of Janet's catalog including titles and lyrics, we can go anywhere with this title.

At the time, I was traveling back and forth from the Bay back home to LA a lot. Almost all to hang with my BFF Remark and Med. I ran the title by Remark and it just seemed to capture what we were trying to accomplish with this mix.

So don’t hold back. Just have a good time. We’ll make the rules up as we go along and break them all if we’re not having fun.

The lyrics to ESCAPADE was money. Thank you Med aka "Boothang" for that!